Author: Camara Dia Holloway

I am the Project Manager for the Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. I earned my PhD at Yale University in the History of Art Department and specialize in twentieth century American art with a particular focus on the history of photography, race and representation, and transatlantic modernist networks. I also serve as a Founding Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH).

Apartheid in Manhattan: The International Center for Photography’s “Rise and Fall of Apartheid”

Neelika Jayawardane's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)

The International Center for Photography (ICP) is located in the heart of Manhattan, at the corner of West 43rd Street and the Avenue of the Americas. Nearby, Times Square’s mirages—brilliant expanses of neon fantasies, some spanning the length of several stories and the breadth of entire city blocks—summon passers-by with images of athletes, models, slick tans and racy footwear. There are some visible traces of “Africa”: West African men sell pashmina scarves, woollen hats, and gloves in street corner stalls, and Disney’s “The Lion King” rules Broadway—now in its fifteenth year running, the show has a stretch of window displays dedicated to re-instituting Africa as a place of masks, skins, and noble, half-human animals.

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What the post-racials are looking for

Neelika Jayawardane's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


April marks the springtime festival of fertility and harvest, Holi, which is celebrated throughout northern India. Because Holi is a yearly event that includes a large amount of revelry, without the obvious presence of the sacred, it’s become adapted by some odd pockets of people. I even saw a “Festival of Colours Run” race recently: you run a 5 km race and get bombed by coloured powder (immediately after that, I found a blogpost titled, “The color run is the most cultural appropriative shit I’ve ever seen” on the Blog “India is Not a Prop Bag”). What a pity that the organisers and participants of various “Holi Fests” in South Africa didn’t get that memo. Even calling it “Holi Fest” irritates a little—as if it is now commodified nicely into yet another Neohippy Wellingtons meets muddyshit-and-rapedrugs-in-drinks music festival.

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Strategies for Remembering Trauma

artstuffmatters's avatarArtstuffmatters

When I was in Los Angeles a few of weeks ago, I explored Ken Gonzales-Day’s Lynching Walking Tour from his Erased Lynching series, 2002-2011. While journeying on this path through the El Pueblo and Civic Center areas with a print-out of the tour instructions, I was often struck by the lack of physical markers on the landscape.  This brutal yet significant history involves multiple bodies. But the tour sites mask those bodies.

This experience made me return to my ruminations on how people memorialize trauma. Art about devastating historical events and other violent ordeals engages difficult issues of representation. How does one express the effects of suffering on the body? Is figurative art too literal? Is it too revealing? Does depicting a person’s body in pain remove her/his subjectivity? Is abstraction a more responsible choice? Or is abstraction insensitive? Does it use form to mask human feelings? What is the…

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Takeifa: Rocking Dakar

Zachary Rosen's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


Some music videos take you by surprise. One such video is the brand new offering by the Senegalese band Takeifa, called “Supporter”. Takeifa is band of siblings from the Keita family headed by brother Jac. According to soundcloud fable, Jac Keita experienced his musical calling at the tender age of 11, begging his father for an old guitar. Finally acquiring a guitar without strings, he cleverly fashioned makeshift strings from bicycle break cables. Before long Jac was recognized for his prodigious talent and recruited three of his brothers and one sister to join him in making music. The Keitas moved to Dakar in 2006 and established themselves as reliably strong performers in Dakar’s music scene.

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CONF: Black Collectivities @ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

May 3–4, 2013

How do collaboratives created by cultural practitioners of African descent provide new perceptions, understandings, and forms of practice? This conference brings together key individuals from around the globe, including Otolith Group cofounder Kodwo Eshun, artists Theaster Gates and Rick Lowe, musician George Lewis, and Tate Gallery curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, among others, to broach this timely question. Organized by Huey Copeland, Associate Professor at Northwestern, and Naomi Beckwith at the MCA.

On Friday at the Block Museum, Kodwo Eshun and Rick Lowe provide the keynote conversation, moderated by Naomi Beckwith. All other speakers listed below are featured in conversations on Saturday at the MCA, along with a conference wrap up panel moderated by Huey Copeland.

Conference participants include:

http://www2.mcachicago.org/event/event-past-10/

JOB: Assistant/Associate Professor of African/African American Art @ Elizabeth City State University

Assistant/Associate Professor-Art Historian.  Responsibilities:  The purpose of this position is to teach existing Art History and survey courses along with Art Appreciation. Strengthen the department’s offerings in African and African American Art History. Provide student academic advisement, participate in committee assignments and perform research and scholarly activities and grantsmanships.   Requirements:  Doctorate in Art History with a background in Western and Non-Western Art with strong emphasis in African and African American Art. Experience with museum and/or gallery desired.

Position is Exempt from the Personnel Act. (EPA Faculty)

Degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions.

Under Federal requirements (Fair Credit Reporting Act), ECSU will conduct a criminal background report for all final candidates for all positions and appointments.  Credit and/or driving record reports will be completed on final candidates for positions and appointments that have financial or driving responsibilities as part of the job duties.

Application Process:  Submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, official college transcripts and the names, addresses and telephone numbers of three (3) professional reference letters via Elizabeth City State University online employment site at https://jobs.ecsu.edu. EOE

Neelika Jayawardane's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


Jezebel has already gone overboard commenting on and identifying the obvious misogyny and racial stereotyping in Sports Illustrated’s Seven Continents spread. They went through each photo, tagging them with gems such as:

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